


The Right Thing

by Wolfling



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-08
Updated: 2010-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfling/pseuds/Wolfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd thought he had the Winchesters all figured out. Now he wasn't so sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Omphalos and Katie for betaing. I suspect there will be much more following this. It's been a long while since I latched onto a character as hard as I have Gabriel.

Gabriel prided himself on understanding humans far better than the average angel. He'd not only observed them, but lived among them for thousands of years. He delighted in their endless imagination and creativity, and he took great pleasure in turning it against those that deserved it. If any angel had a grasp of human nature and how humans react, he'd like to think it was him.

So the fact that the Winchesters kept surprising him was pretty damned irritating to say the least.

It wasn't that the Winchesters had figured out what he was that surprised him, not really. After the momentary shock, it had seemed pretty fitting actually, given who and what they were. That they had trapped him was embarrassing, but it wasn't like they were two Joe Schmoe hunters just off the turnip truck. The prophesied vessels of his brothers were going to be a little more on the ball than that.

No, the thing that surprised Gabriel was that they had let him go at the end. He couldn't stop thinking about that; it was something he never would have predicted, and he'd thought he had the Winchesters all figured out. Now he wasn't so sure.

Try as he might, he couldn't leave it alone. He kept prodding at it like a human child would a loose tooth. Finally he admitted to himself he was going to have to swallow his pride and go seek some answers.

He found the one he sought standing out in the middle of a field, staring at the night sky.

"Y'know, some humans think that the stars are lights shining through from Heaven," Gabriel said, walking to stand next to the other angel. "Wonder what they would say if they knew the lights were on but nobody's home."

He smirked as Castiel startled and spun to face him. "Gabriel," he said warily.

"Oh, relax, Castiel," Gabriel said as he felt Castiel brace himself for an attack. "I'm here to talk, not fight."

"About what?" Castiel asked, though he didn't relax one whit. Not that Gabriel could blame him, all things considered.

"What else? The Winchesters." Interestingly, that caused Castiel to tense even more, bristling and taking a step _closer_ to Gabriel.

"I won't let you touch them again," he warned, voice low and full of all the determination and power of his remaining Grace. As power levels went, it was a little like a chihuahua threatening a pitbull, but Gabriel wasn't laughing. The little angel had a tenacity and determination that Gabriel had rarely seen anywhere. He had wriggled his way once out of the holding reality that Gabriel had thrown him in, and it probably would have happened a second time, if the Winchesters hadn't forced Gabriel to release Castiel first.. For all that Castiel was just a rank and file angel with a slowly fading Grace, Gabriel wasn't going to underestimate him.

That kept his tone almost conciliatory when he replied. "I told you, I'm just here to talk. No one's touching anybody." He held his hands up to demonstrate how not-touching he was being.

Castiel didn't really relax at his assurances, but the intensity of his stare went down a notch or two. "So talk then."

Gabriel hadn't really planned on how to phrase what he wanted to learn so he was almost as surprised as Castiel when he blurted out, "Why? Why are you following the Winchesters? You know the prophesies as well as I do. You know there's only one way this can end."

"No," Castiel replied after considering for a moment. "I don't. The Winchesters -- all humans -- have free will. The script may have been written, but that doesn't mean the lines will be spoken. It isn't a foregone conclusion."

"Maybe they have a say in whether they become Lucifer and Michael's vessels," Gabriel conceded grudgingly, "but that still doesn't change how it's going to end. Lucifer's not about to roll over and give up because he can't have Sam for his vessel. The war's still going to go on, there's still going to be blood and death by the bucketful, with no end in sight, except the end of everything."

"Or we will find a way to stop it."

Gabriel was surprised at how strong and sure Castiel's voice was. "You seem so certain that you will."

Sam and Dean are," Castiel replied, then almost immediately amended, "Most of the time at least. But even when they doubt, they keep fighting. I suspect that even if they knew with complete certainty that it really was hopeless, they would still keep fighting. Because it is the right thing to do. I find that is a rare quality in these times. It's why I follow them."

Gabriel turned that over in his mind. Could it be that simple? Or maybe simple wasn't the right word. Gabriel had spent hundreds of years raining justice down on the humans that deserved it, and he'd never had to look too far to find his next target. Looking for someone who did things just because they were the right things to do, that would have been significantly harder. On his most cynical days, he probably would have even claimed it impossible.

Castiel continued on after a brief pause. "More than that, they are my friends." The way he said it made it clear how important Castiel thought that was, which surprised Gabriel once again.

"You're going to stop the apocalypse with friendship?" He didn't try to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"Perhaps," Castiel replied, not the least perturbed by Gabriel's scoffing. "Angels have our Father, our brothers, and our mission. We don't have friends. The host doesn't truly understand how powerful that bond can be, as powerful as those of family. More powerful in some ways because it is one that must be chosen. To choose to be someone's friend, to choose anything beyond blind obedience changes everything. It changes the way you think about things. Choice means that nothing is preordained, that the outcome still can be changed. And it will be changed. They -- _we_\-- choose to change it."

Gabriel stared at him for a long moment. If this rank and file angel could be changed into this impossible mix of defiance and belief, if he could willfully disobey Heaven's orders and still, somehow, have perfect faith in their Father and their Father's plan, then maybe... Maybe there really was a way out of this.

Maybe he'd been looking at everything all wrong, he thought suddenly as his point of view spun and changed in a way that almost left him dizzy. Maybe the question he should have been asking wasn't why weren't the Winchester brothers going along with the apocalyptic gameplan, but instead why was _he_?

He _liked_ Earth and humanity, and all the wonderful creative things humans came up with. Sure, they were far from perfect, were downright petty and selfish and all around _wrong_ so much of the time, but still. Things would be a lot more boring if there weren't any humans around. Gabriel had long suspected that might have been why Dad had created them in the first place.

Maybe that was something his family needed to be reminded about. Forcibly. Maybe, just maybe, he was the one who should be doing the reminding.

It was a big thought, bigger than he'd allowed himself to think in centuries. More than that, it was a scary thought, so scary that it made him want to dive as deep as he could into the Trickster persona, until there wasn't even a hint of Gabriel left to have the thought.

But he didn't. Like it or not, there had been some truth to what Dean Winchester had yelled at him as a parting shot. He hadn't tried to stop his brothers, even when they were shattering everything that meant something to him. And now that it was happening again, his first instinct had been roughly the equivalent of putting his hands over his ears and pretending he couldn't hear the yelling.

It wasn't the _right_ thing to do, he knew that as surely as he knew that doing the right thing scared him like nothing else. But if he didn't do it, if he instead pulled the metaphorical blanket over his head to wait until it was over, humanity was going to be lost to him as surely as all the other things he'd cared for the first time around.

Scared or not, the more Gabriel thought about it, the more he felt like this was a line he had to cross. That this was a decision he had to make and if he didn't, he'd be failing the biggest test he'd ever faced.

Maybe, just maybe, even if Dad wasn't around anymore, He was still sending a well needed kick in the pants Gabriel's way, and using a couple of humans to deliver it. If there was even a slim chance that that was the case, then there was really only one thing Gabriel could do.

"All right," he said after a long silence. "Tell the Winchesters I want to talk. To deal."

Castiel regarded him searchingly for a moment, his head cocked to the side. "I'm not entirely certain their answer would consist of anything more than curse words and insults."

Gabriel was entirely certain that any response would contain both. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"They might refuse."

"They won't."

"How can you be so certain?" Castiel asked, his puzzled frown growing deeper.

Clapping a hand to Castiel's shoulder, Gabriel found himself grinning more easily than he had in a very very long time. He'd forgotten what this had felt like.

"Because," he said, feeling himself standing just a little bit straighter and taller, "it's the right thing to do."

END


End file.
